Tag Archives: fantasy

Christmas Never Sleeps is my year-long cartoon epic that has followed Santa J. Claus daily since Christmas day, 2019, and will reach its conclusion on Christmas Eve, 2020. During the course of those 365 days, it continues to paint the icon in familiar broad strokes, but with quirky details that aren’t apparent during his usual once-a-year appearance.

Saturday’s ‘Superheroes!’ Presentation by the Cincinnati Pops at Taft Theatre was more than I was expecting. I had looked forward to a replay of 2013’s amazing ‘Superheroes!’ concert, but instead found that the show had been refashioned into a full-blown musical, charting the adventures of heroes Conduktor and Rubáto, and villains Purrfect Pitch and Otto Tüün, as portrayed by members of the Children’s Theatre of Cincinnati. The plot had the heroes laying waste to the bad guys’ scheme to replace live music with electronic, and — as an aside — destroy the world with a phalanx of gigantic tuning forks. An origin story was tucked in there as well. Songs from Hercules, The Wiz, Newsies, and Hairspray were repurposed to help tell the story along with selections from the Pops’ original Superheroes! concert. Great fun to see the characters I co-created with Cincinnati Pops conductor John Morris Russell live onstage.

Many of the kids, and even parents, in the audience came dressed in their best superhero outfits, and conductor Russell and I had a great time meeting attendees and signing programs and masks for them afterward.

Many thanks to the Cincinnati Pops team and the Children’s Theatre of Cincinnati!